{"id":511,"date":"2007-11-16T10:46:31","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T14:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=511"},"modified":"2007-11-16T10:47:48","modified_gmt":"2007-11-16T14:47:48","slug":"511","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=511","title":{"rendered":"Exactly as I predicted"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you relocate the horizon of success, you can win at anything. Michael Gerson<\/a> teaches us how to do that with arguments:<\/p>\n

>On cultural issues, conservatives<\/strong> have been ambushed by hope. And Wehner and Levin provide two main explanations.<\/p>\n

>First, societies can, over time, recognize their own self-destructive tendencies and reassert old norms — not just arresting decline but even reversing it. Many Americans, for example, have seen the damaging effects of divorce on children — sometimes from the firsthand perspective of their own childhoods — and divorce rates, especially among upper-income couples, have fallen. Over the decades the social wreckage of drug use has become undeniable — and the social judgment on this practice has shifted from “stylish rebellion” to “suicidal idiocy.”<\/strong> In many cases, our culture has benefited from the natural healing mechanism of simple sanity.<\/p>\n

>The second reason for this cultural renewal is bold, effective public policy — welfare reform with time limits and work requirements; zero-tolerance approaches to crime; education reform that tests and requires basic skills; and comprehensive anti-drug efforts, including enforcement, treatment and education. In all these cases, good government and rational incentives have made a tremendous difference. <\/p>\n

Lower crime, less drug abuse, lower divorce rates, real book learning of course, are all of them uniquely conservative<\/strong> positions. Liberals, of course, advocated drug abuse as stylish rebellion, no investment in quality public education, unlimited welfare, and a tolerant attitude towards crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you relocate the horizon of success, you can win at anything. Michael Gerson teaches us how to do that with arguments: >On cultural issues, conservatives have been ambushed by hope. And Wehner and Levin provide two main explanations. >First, societies can, over time, recognize their own self-destructive tendencies and reassert old norms — not … Continue reading Exactly as I predicted<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-michael-gerson","category-straw-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}